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Review of The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture ed. B.J. Oropeza

Oropeza, B.J. The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture. Foreword by Stan Lee. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005.

Owed, perhaps, to the recent interest in religious-centered
self-help guides and popular comic book criticism, three books
examining the religious implications of contemporary popular superhero
comics have been released over the past three years. While Greg
Garrett's Holy Superheroes: Exploring Faith and Spirituality in
Comic Books, H. Michael Brewer's Who Needs a Superhero?:
Finding Virtue, Vice and What's Holy in the Comics and
B.J. Oropeza's edited collection The Gospel According to
Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture all offer some
measure of insight into the role of religion (Judeo-Christian
religion, in particular) and spiritual faith in contemporary superhero
narratives, only Oropeza's collection provides comics readers and
comics scholars alike with any true critical insight into how
superhero comics negotiate and interact with matters of faith and
spirituality. Both Garrett and Brewer's books offer simplistic and
unoriginal arguments that concentrate on examining how a number of
popular superheroes each represent some aspect of divinity or biblical
legend. The biggest problem with both of these texts is not only their
lack of any discernible scholarly apparatus or intention, but moreover
their downright heavy-handed attempts to force a particularly
Judeo-Christian perspective upon their readers that insists, rather
naïvely, on superhero comics being merely adaptations of biblical
myths designed to offer religious instruction to their
readers. At worst, both of these books are works of religious
propaganda masquerading as popular criticism.

On the other hand, B.J. Oropeza's collection is not intended for
only the devoted and faithful. All of the essays in this collection
show a genuine interest in exploring the theological and ideological
implications of superhero comics from a decidedly scholarly
perspective. Oropeza's thorough and stimulating introduction to the
volume, "Superhero Myths and the Restoration of Paradise," carefully
considers and justifies the relevance of the comparative study of
superhero myths and theology. While Oropeza states that the
collection "instructs the inquirer on how biblical message . . . has
been revised and retold through the superhero genre," (4) unlike
either Garrett or Brewer, none of these essays forget that comics are
a "multilayered medium" in which "many religious and secular
voices may be heard" (18). Oropeza insists that "while the characters
themselves might not always speak outwardly about religion and the
gospel, their stories make implicit and sometimes explicit, points
about theology" for their "adventures portray what is latent in
mythology, biblical narratives, and philosophical ponderings" (4).
The theme of "restored paradise," as he contends, serves as "a prime
example of how superhero stories cross over mythical, religious and
ideological boundaries" (4). Oropeza argues that at the center of
every human spiritual or intellectual journey is a quest for
ever-lasting paradise, for, as a whole, "humanity has lost its
original paradise and wants to be restored to it" (6). At the core of
every superhero myth – from that of Batman and Superman to that of
Spiderman and Spawn – is a tragic loss, be it a loss of homeland, life,
love, or peace. Nearly every superhero is figured as a fallen soul,
desperate for a reason to carry on in the wake of world- or
psyche-altering traumas. But despite their losses, Oropeza contends
that "superheroes normally come to an epiphany in which they are
commissioned to help others and do battle against evil forces" (7).
Oropeza argues that superhero narratives frequently tap into the sense
of a coming apocalypse that can be averted or at least abated through
the slaying of some sort of monstrous form for the purpose of
restoring an Eden-like paradise to Earth. As cultural icons,
superheroes ultimately serve as "secular agents" through which people
can "alleviate some of their anxieties about the future of this
planet" (9) by insisting that the forces of good will ultimately
triumph over those of evil. Oropeza suggests that for Western
society, superheroes function as immortal spirits and that, in their
refusal to die or stay dead, "the superheroes echo humanity's latent
desire for life everlasting, a benefit of unfettered communication
with the giver of life in the new paradise" (10). For Oropeza,
superheroes serve an important cultural function; they allow readers
to, in essence, vicariously fight injustice and evil and live on
through reading or viewing the otherworldly exploits of their
superheroes, a contention that is difficult for any comic reader to
dispute.

C.K. Robertson's excellent and highly informative chapter "The
True Ubermensch: Batman as Humanistic Myth" is an exceptionally strong critical reading of the Batman myth. Robertson argues that Batman, whom he positions as being among
the most iconic figures in American popular culture, "can be
understood as a prime example of Nietzsche's ubermensch" (49).
According to Nietzsche, the figure of ubermensch is that of a healthy,
independent and strong individual who operates in the "real world" and
"affirms life precisely because he understands suffering and 'the
eternal recurrence' of events" (51). Robertson, much like Frank
Miller and a variety of other modern and postmodern comic book
creators, views Batman and Superman as being fundamentally separate
from one another both spiritually and ideologically, with Batman
serving as "the perfect counterpart to Superman" (53) and his ideals.
Robertson insists, quite adeptly, that the "gospel according to Batman
would be a Nietzschean message" (54) and that Batman's origin story
"contains all the elements of the Nietzschean ideal of the superman"
(54). Unlike Superman, Batman is ultimately an ordinary man,
self-made and hardly in need of any sort of saving by any outside
ideological or spiritual forces. Robertson contends that Batman's
"tale is the ultimate humanistic myth . . . the mythology of the
Batman is a mythology of the strong, the healthy, the independent"
(60) and that his mythology holds particular meaning and importance
for the modern individual, perhaps more so than any other popular
superhero. The myth of Batman is rooted in the existentialist notion
of making one's own destiny in the world by relying entirely on one's
inner strength, endurance and ingenuity. Robertson contends that
"against such a Nietzschean 'superman,'" the Man of Steel, for all his
powers, looms pale in comparison," (61) which might help to explain
Grant Morrison and Frank Miller's seeming inability to allow Superman
to mentally or even physically overpower Batman.

In his chapter "Superheroes in Crisis: Postmodern Deconstruction
in Comic Books and Graphic Novel," Thom Parham argues that D.C.'s
1985-1986 universe altering Crisis on Infinite Earths
mini-series served as the end of the silver age and the start
of the modern (or postmodern) age of deconstructive and reconstructive
(two concepts which Parham links closely to each other, viewing them
as two sides to the same coin) superhero comic books. With their
thematic mixture of realism and surrealism and open questioning of any
existing moral and artistic systems, books such as Alan Moore's
Watchmen and Swamp Thing, Frank Miller's
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Kurt Busiek and Alex
Ross's Marvels and Busiek's Astro City all
demonstrate particularly deconstructive ideological and artistic
ideals, styles and impulses, rejecting previous cultural and comic
master narratives and utterly restructuring superhero myths from the
inside out. These books, as Perham wisely contends, demonstrate that
superhero narratives are not by any means artistically or culturally
passť and that thanks to the rise of deconstruction in Western thought
and art, "traditional standards of morality may be difficult to cling
to" (210). Seeing as how "science no longer hold a privileged
position for postmodern audiences . . . people are willing to explore
the spiritual, the mythical, the neo-pagan, as a mean of designing a
semblance of order in the chaos of twenty-first century life," (211) a
cultural impulse to which superhero comics, perhaps more so than any
other popular art form, have been willing to attach themselves to and
explore over the past twenty-five years.

Unlike Garrett and Brewer's books, all thirteen of the essays
featured in Oropeza's collection sufficiently demonstrate the cultural
and intellectual relevance and significance of superhero comics beyond
the realm of the spiritual. Each of the essays in the volume
recognize that superhero comics are capable of not merely imparting
messages but can also provide critiques of society and grant readers a
variety of intellectual and emotional experiences. None of the essays
in this collection resort to simply perpetuating any particular
ideology. Instead they allow for the operation of a variety of
ideologies in superhero comics to be thoughtfully explored in a
critical, scholarly manner, unveiling the ultimate philosophical and
cultural depth of modern and contemporary superhero comics.

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